PAOLI, PASQUALE. - Corsican patriot, b. at La Stretta di Morosaglia on 26 April 1725, d. in London on 5 February 1807. At the age of fourteen, once the island's revolt against the Republic of Genoa had been put down, he followed his father, Giacinto, into exile in Naples, where he attended the schools of the most renowned masters. In 1741 he entered the Bourbon army in the "Corsica" regiment, made up almost entirely of Corsicans. He always kept in contact with the Corsican notables, until, elected supreme head of the nation, he returned to the island and resumed the struggle against the Genoese government, little by little taking from it all the inland regions until it was reduced to the fortified points of the coast. Then he had the national Consulta approve a whole body of laws worthy of a free people, promoted agriculture, and founded the University of Corte, calling to teach there masters, all Corsicans, of proven worth, belonging to religious orders.
In 1760, as the war with the Genoese Republic continued and disorders in ecclesiastical discipline persisted, P. asked Clement XIII for an apostolic visitor; and this was sent in the person of Mons. Crescenzio De Angelis, bishop of Segni. The Genoese government placed a price on the head of the pontifical envoy, but to no avail. In 1767 P. granted generous hospitality, on the island, to the Jesuits expelled from Spain and from America.
The following year Genoa ceded possession of Corsica to France; P. protested and for about a year held his own against the more powerful enemy; but after the rout of Ponte Nuovo (10 May 1769) he had to surrender and take refuge in London. In 1790, at the beginning of the French Revolution, he was able to return to his homeland and was appointed president of the departmental administration. For the first two years he followed the directives of the Paris government; but then, being unable in conscience to consent to the excesses of the Jacobin Party and of the National Convention, he was suspended from his functions and invited to justify himself before the Assembly. He instead organized a new local government and asked the British government for help and protection, offering King George the sovereignty of the island. Having failed to obtain for himself the hoped-for office of viceroy, disappointed, he departed for his final exile in London, where he lived esteemed and honored by all.
Bibliography6 works
Ensilio Michel